A couple of weeks ago I was in sunny Vancouver to speak at the Call to Action Conference arranged by Unbounce.

The event was phenomenal.

But don’t take my word for it, you can watch all the videos, download the slide decks and read the notes for free here.

As you may know, every Monday I do a podcast called Hit Publish for Copyblogger. They’re no longer doing transcripts for the shows but I know some people prefer to read the Hit Publish episodes so I’ve included the script from this week’s show.

Hit Publish transcript: conversion copy techniques

“Hello this is Amy Harrison and you’re listening to Hit Publish where I cover simple ways to get better results with your online business.

This week I’m bringing to you a gift basket of tips on how to get more engagement and action from your readers and prospects. I recently returned from a 2 day conference all about getting the attention of your customer and more importantly, using content and design to convert them into customers. I wanted to share some of the hottest tips that are working in marketing today.

Are you ready to boost your persuasion powers with some magical conversion methods? Let’s Hit Publish.

So, I recently returned from the Call to Action conference in Vancouver where I was on a panel with the lovely Demian Farnworth from Copyblogger and Joanna Wiebe from Copyhackers. Now if you were listening last week, you’ll know that on the flight over, I caught a cold. Well, on the flight back I caught another one and so this is week 2 of being under the weather and having a daft voice.

It’s rare that I ever come down with something, maybe every couple of years. Now, while I’m resilient and industrious most of the time, if I get sick something weird happens. I become pathetic, and also dramatic.

[If you’re not familiar with Hit Publish, I pepper in a couple of sketches every episode. Complete with sound effects… The following is just the script]

Amy 1: How are you feeling today?

[Dramatic music]

Amy 2: Amy? Is that you? Come closer, I can’t see you too clearly. How am I feeling? I persevere even though my spirit may be weary. Please… pass that cool wet cloth to mop my fevered brow. Ah, there you are. You are looking well. Good health is a crown, on the well person’s head that only the ill person can see…

[Dramatic music stops abruptly]

Amy 1: You’ve got a cold. Get over it

For some reason whenever I get ill it’s as though my body has been infiltrated not only by a virus but also by the spirits of Sir John Gielgud and Sir laurence Olivier. It’s like being a sickly shakespearean actor.

But that’s enough of my weary life, let’s get on with the show!

First up, it’s the word of the week.

If you’ve been listening for a while, you know the drill. Somewhere in this podcast I hide a word. I can hear your ears straining already to pick it up. It’s not in the transcript, it’s just a little something I hide for you as a listener. A gift from me to you.

This week’s word is: snickersnee. It means a knife, especially one used as a weapon. Now how on earth am I going to sneak that in? Snickersnee. Keep your ears open.

Okay, let’s get to the meat, or the veggie nut roast of this particular episode.

At the conference, conversion experts around the world convened to share their tips of what was working today. What do I mean by conversion experts? There were copywriters, people who ran a/b tests for companies, email marketing experts, landing page consultants. Every aspect of getting someone to take action once they landed on a web page was covered and I took notes to share with you.

I will link to the conference page because – and this is crazy, even if you didn’t attend you can watch all the videos, download the slide decks and even read the notes that were taken for each session. Well worth looking at.

There is a lot there and I don’t want to overwhelm you, so these are 3 takeaways that you can put into place quickly to help boost your conversions.

1: When it comes to copy, don’t rush the small stuff

One of the interesting findings was just how much the copy in your call to action can affect whether or not people click on a link, button or sign up.

Oli Gardner is the co-founder of Unbounce, a company that sells software to help build landing pages. In his presentation he shared these findings about how little changes in your call to action can make big differences.

Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce

Before I share these though I want to make clear that there are no definitive magic words that work for everyone. You do need to try things out and see what works for your audience. But, these tips will give you a great starting point.

Well, Oli found the same thing. What should you use instead? This is the interesting thing. Oli ran a series of tests and found that pretty much anything else written on the button beat ‘submit.’ so lesson one, scrap the word ‘submit’ from your call to action buttons (this is something I need to go and do soon!)

FREE may not be as persuasive as you think

Next up was something that surprised me. As copywriters you’re told that the word Free is a powerful word to use. And yet when Oli tested free against not free. So for example get your free ebook versus get your ebook, the version that didn’t mention free actually performed better by about 16%. So if you’re using free in your call to action, you might want to experiment with taking that our.

Tell people what to do… explicitly

Next up, direct instructions work really well. It turns out that people like being told exactly what to do. So even though we all know that when we see a button the purpose is to click it, telling someone to ‘click here’ actually increased conversions in Oli’s tests.

Urgency still works

Urgency is also pretty powerful. The word ‘now’ increased the number of people who clicked on a button. Download now, compared to just download, increased conversions by 13%.

Make them own it

Finally, and this is one I’ve seen before in conversion testing. A sense of ownership can increase conversions. Writing ‘download your ebook’ isn’t as effective as ‘download my ebook’ in a call to action.

To recap then, and again, these are starting points for your own experiments:

Avoid using the word submit in your call to action or buttons

Experiment with NOT using the word ‘free’

Tell people exactly what to do: click here works well,

Urgency is still a motivator, don’t forget to tell people to do something ‘now’

My outperforms your

2: See if your copy becomes clearer by ‘flipping your headline’

Another test that Oli ran was to see how clear people’s headlines were in communicating what a product or business did. Now I loved this idea because it’s something I see a lot. What tends to happen is that people work hard on a headline, they want it to be clever and concise, but what happens is that by overworking it, it becomes vague and difficult to understand. What’s more, a lot of businesses put the key information in their subheading.

So Oli ran a test to see what would happen if you flipped a headline and subheading. In one example the headline was:

Not your ordinary product demo

and the subheading was

See how we can help you grow traffic, sales and leads

He flipped it around so that it now said:

See how we can help you grow traffic, sales and leads

Not your ordinary product demo

Now, and this is a cool thing you can do. Oli used a site called usabilityhub. He created 2 versions of the page, and tested to see which one communicated the message more clearly. 60% of people understood what the product did when the subheading was the headline, compared to 0% with the original headline.

Now if all that testing sounds complicated, this is all I want to ask – look at your headlines. And only your headlines. Are they communicating specifically what it is your service or product does? Or is that information in your subheading? If so you might want to think about flipping them round.

3: Don’t be afraid to make customers work hard

Quite often when it comes to getting people to fill out forms, or register or send in an enquiry, the common thought is ‘more is better’. More leads means more sales, more newsletter sign ups means a better email list to market to.

Will from Seer Interactive

But quality is also better than quantity. Wil Reynolds is the founder of Seer Interactive, a marketing agency. One day his sales team were asking for more leads. Instead of agreeing, Wil took a step back and thought:

What if the sales team had more time to spend on leads that were actually worthwhile?

So they changed their enquiry form. And it was a big change. It went from a simple contact form, to something that took a lot of time and effort to fill out. But it worked. The people who were willing to make it all the way to the end of a form were a much better quality of client.

Because let’s face it you deserve someone who is willing to work hard for you.

[Royal trumpet sounds]Suitor: Your majesty, King George Jones the 9th, ruler of country music land.My name is Hank Williams the 14th. A modest, but hardworking woodsman. I am here to ask you for the hand in marriage of your daughter, Princess Amy Harrison, the fairest maiden in all of the bluegrass valley.

[Tense, dramatic music]

King: Very well. But first you must prove yourself. You must tackle the fierce ogre in the dark forest, you may want to slay him with your knife… once that’s done you must beguile the wicked witch and elicit from her the recipe for the elixir of life. On your return you must bring me a black orchid from a mountain top, as well as the latest Jimmy Buffet album. I forgot to pick it up the other day.

Suitor: Your wish is my command

[Adventure music]

The woodsman does as he is asked and returns to marry princess Amy.

Amy: He is the best husband ever, the other day he did the dishes and I didn’t even ask him to.

Now, let’s say the woodsman didn’t have to work so hard.

There’s a reason fairytales aren’t told like this:

[Royal trumpet music]

Suitor: Your majesty. I would like to marry your daughter.

[Tense, dramatic music]

King: Hmmm, are you willing to go on a life-threatening adventure to win her hand?

Amy: Well he always comes in late smelling of booze and perfume and when he’s run out of beer he just wiggles and crushes the can at me.

King: Ahh, the international sign for please get me another cold one.

Amy: Dad!

King. Okay, maybe we should have made him try harder.

Now you don’t have to send your customer on a difficult adventure to work with you but here’s something to think about:

If you find yourself getting enquiries from people who aren’t a good fit, is there a way you can filter them before they get through the virtual door? This might mean asking people to submit their budget for a project, or getting them to fill out a mini-questionnaire so that you can better assess early on if it’s going to be a good fit.

From these 3 tips can you make some changes to boost your conversions? Can you revisit the copy on your call to action buttons? Or look at flipping your headline? Or even make your prospect work a little bit harder so that when you do get a lead, it’s more likely to be a great fit rather than a mismatch

That’s all for this week, so until next time, remember to take action and Hit Publish.”

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About Amy Harrison

I am a copywriter, content-trainer, speaker and filmmaker teaching businesses how to avoid drab business content and write copy customers love to read. You can also find me hanging out and sharing content over on Google+.